Volodymyr Bova: philanthropist, swindler, shahrai or FSB agent?

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In recent months, the name of the capital’s businessman Volodymyr Bova has been flashing in the information space. Moreover, some media outlets call him a "patron and sponsor", while others call him a "criminal and fraudster". Opinions, as they say, are divided.

Let’s try to figure it out. Let’s start with patronage. Indeed, if you enter the name and surname ‘’Volodymyr Bova‘’ into a search engine, it will, among other things, provide a link to an article by a certain Andriy Lytovka dated 8 August this year entitled ‘’Volodymyr Bova: a philanthropist or businessman should always help his hometown‘’:

For some reason, the material was posted on a Russian resource, and it has had as many as 8 views in a month. And at least one of these views is the work of the author of this material. In addition, Volodymyr Bova is mentioned five times in this article: once in the title, twice in the tags. And twice more, he is quoted directly, in which he speaks abstractly about patronage. The article does not say a word about what Vladimir Bova himself has done as a patron of the arts. Nor does it say what city he considers his hometown and helps it. Instead, other well-known businessmen and philanthropists in Ukraine are mentioned. And their specific actions are mentioned:

Another story that mentions Volodymyr Bova as a person who has allocated money for something concerns last year’s elections. Indeed, Volodymyr Bova sponsored the construction of a basketball court in Chernihiv in September 2020. According to the materials, he allocated UAH 2.5 million. However, according to a story by the New Chernihiv TV channel, which was broadcast in the midst of the mayoral and city council election campaigns, ‘a certain businessman Volodymyr Bova gave 460,000 UAH for a new basketball court near his house at 15 Samokvasova Street. Another 2.5 million was added from the budget.’

So the fact of allocating money did happen. It doesn’t matter whether it was 460 thousand or 2.5 million (the former is more likely to be correct - local journalists are clearly aware of the actual costs), Bova did allocate money for the sports ground. But this is by no means patronage. It could be sponsorship of a mayoral candidate’s election campaign, or sponsorship of sports, but not patronage, which implies a slightly different investment of money.

However, there is no other information about Volodymyr Bova’s ‘patronage’ or sponsorship or other charity. Instead, there is a whole flurry of information about his not-quite, to put it mildly, legal actions:

The latest news in this series is from August of this year. It says that activists in the capital have exposed a network of call centers with Russian roots. According to the activists, businessmen were embezzling citizens’ funds by posing as investment consultants. And they called their call center company an "investment company."

Clients, on the advice of consultants, transferred funds to electronic wallets and accounts of some companies, but were physically unable to withdraw these funds, even after receiving mythical dividends or winnings.

The activists also received evidence that these companies (TON System; Wf-wf; ODS Protect Premium Group LLC; Lightprogram LLC; Information Center Garant) work in conjunction with Sberbank of Russia and the Gazprom corporation.

And behind the work of at least some of these “call centers” is Volodymyr Bova, who, according to activists and unnamed employees of these “centers,” solves all problems with law enforcement for a certain percentage of the profits.

It is known that at least one of these firms, the World Staff Recruiting Company, which operated on the 24th floor of a multi-story building on Knyazhiy Zaton Street, was visited by the SSU with a search warrant.

During which it was revealed that the employees of this “investment” firm worked with European countries and managed to swindle at least 5 million euros from gullible Europeans.

Read also: How fraudster Volodymyr Bova created a network of fake investment companies in Kyiv

The investigation into these cases, as law enforcement officials assure, is continuing. However, there are serious doubts that this investigation will somehow affect Vololdymyr Bova. For four years now he has been accused of a much more serious crime - attempted kidnapping.

The case happened back in 2017, when a group of people, which included Volodymyr Bova, tried to kidnap and take the owner of the Obukhiv Cardboard Plant, Volodymyr Krupchak, to Russia for 17 million dollars:

It is interesting that during the selection of the measure of restraint for the detainees, the then head of the Obukhiv district police department, Denys Yaroslavskyi, was sitting in the dock next to Vololdymyr Bova:

And the court’s verdict was very strange and lenient: all three suspects in the attempted kidnapping were released on bail. Volodymyr Bova, in particular, was released on bail of 134 thousand hryvnia. Which, by the way, was returned to him in June of this year by the decision of the Kyivo-Svyatoshinskyi District Court:

This is despite the fact that the case against Bova for the kidnapping of Krupchak is by no means closed, and in the Unified Court Register it is listed under number 372/3611/17 and contains more than 50 documents:

Studying the register, one might think that the case is in an active phase, but do not delude yourself - the latest decisions that you see in the photo above are court verdicts regarding payment for translators (one of the defendants is a citizen of the Russian Federation) and the same decisions regarding the return of security deposits. So the outlook is somewhat clear.

In connection with this criminal case, we cannot help but mention another one, where Vololdymyr Bova figured. In April 2016, he, together with “two persons unidentified by the investigation,” at the entrance to the “Mozgi” bar in Kyiv, “under an insignificant and fictitious pretext,” inflicted bodily harm on his comrade. Then Bova was sentenced to 1 year of imprisonment with a probationary period, since the victim agreed to a settlement.

Bova’s outstanding conviction for the attempted kidnapping of citizen Krupchak at the time of his arrest in 2017 did not prevent the most humane Ukrainian court from assigning Bova a preventive measure in the form of a penny bail.

So the assumption about Vololdymyr Bova’s connections in the highest circles of law enforcement agencies looks much more logical and justified in light of this information. Opinions differ on who Bova is connected with - the SSU or the police. But most of those who agree to talk about this claim that Bova is connected with the SSU. But not in the sense that everyone is accustomed to thinking. Everything is simpler and more primitive - Bova simply shares a certain percentage of the flows from the investment fraud scheme through his lawyer with officials of this special purpose state agency.

That’s the whole secret of success.

And attempts to create an image of a "patron" are nothing more than a smokescreen due to the fact that Bova’s name got into the media and investigative journalists became interested in him. Moreover, the attempt was not very successful, which is confirmed by publications on a single little-known Russian resource. In addition, this attempt again leads to the Russian trail in the activities of the "investment funds" supervised by Bova. For this is precisely the kind of clumsiness of execution that is characteristic of Russian curators from the FSB in relation to their foreign wards.

Author: Serhiy Sorokin